Tuesday, January 22, 2013

After getting Peeper started on antibiotics last week, I got jealous and went to see my own doctor the next day, in hopes of scoring some for myself, because I have also been fighting a respiratory thing for weeks, and was starting up with the sinus headaches again.

Since I've probably been on antibiotics for sinus infections at least three or four times within the past eighteen months, my doctor decided that it's time to figure out exactly what's going on.

"Let's image your sinuses," she said, and I imagined smiling pretty for the x-ray machine. Then she continued, "We'll take a look at the CAT scan . . . . "

CAT Scan?!?

". . . and if your sinuses are a mess and it looks like something that antibiotics will help, we'll give you three weeks of a good, strong antibiotic and look again. If that didn't clear it up, then we'll send you to an ENT to discuss whether you're looking at a surgical solution."

Surgical Solution?!?

How did this go from "I got boogies" to "Let's operate inside your face?"

Let's hope that it doesn't come to that!

So, tomorrow later this morning, I'll be having the CAT scan, and I have no idea when to expect to hear about the results, and know what the next step will be.

Meanwhile, she's also referred me to an allergist, and I have an appointment with him in a couple of weeks, presumably for allergy testing, to see if that's what's causing all this.

The thing is, I don't feel too bad at the moment. You know, since I called and made the appointment. Of course. I'm a bit sniffly, and have a mild sinus headache from time to time, but it could certainly be worse. Of course, it probably will be worse again in a few weeks, if we don't figure out what's causing it and do something, so I suppose this is all called for after all.

As for Peeper, she's a week into her two-week course of antibiotics without a lot of change. She's still coughing on exertion, especially if she's outside in the cold, and sometimes without any particular exertion. It's often bad enough to gag a bit, and she's thrown up a bit once this week.

We had hurried into Target from the parking lot, and by the time we got into the bathroom, she was coughing. After we pottied, she kept coughing and even went and leaned over the toilet. I asked her, "Do you need to throw up?"

Cough-cough-gag-throwup (just a bit). "I guess I did need to."

Poor baby.

I'm trying to decide if she's getting winded any more quickly than she should be, but it's hard to tell when I have no one else to compare her to. Today, she was jumping on her mini-trampoline and "exercising" and got to breathing pretty hard - and eventually started coughing. I tried putting my ear on her little chest to see if I could hear any wheezing or anything inside, but what the hell do I know.

Hopefully, it will clear up during the second half of the antibiotics, but the longer it goes the more I worry that we're looking at something like exercise-induced asthma. (That was my doctor's guess, when I told her about Peeper's symptoms, in the context of mine.)

I guess we'll wait a week and if she's still coughing, we'll go back to the doctor and see if he can tell us what's what.